August was a stock-take month for me. I held several meetings which all pointed to the need for public health and the woeful neglect of public health expertise by local, national and international policy makers.

Early in August we held a productive session of the Global Violence Prevention Special Interest Group which resolved to look at training tools for work in conflict and post-conflict areas – how to make rapid needs assessments, how we build alliances with public health resources in conflict areas and how we make sense of prevention and resolution of conflict through working with political scientists, theologians, international lawyers and aid non-governmental organisations. The work is being led by Daniel Flecknoe and Bayad Nozad. We plan to join up this work with that of Brian McCloskey and David Heymann for Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) looking at emergency responses in conflict zones. Mark Bellis’s work for the Commonwealth will also play a key part. The FPH statement says our unique role is in preventing violence and building and implementing the evidence base – locally, nationally and internationally. Economic inequality and unequal power-sharing are major causes of violence at local, regional and international level, and major challenges for the public health community, whether in relation to violence, childhood obesity or premature mortality. It is clear to me that FPH can play a greater role in violence prevention by harnessing the disparate skills of our members, from the frontline to high-level international policy – in emergency preparedness, health protection and health services organisation and in public mental health and community development.

In August I also met with David Ross from the armed forces public health services. They clearly have much expertise to contribute – in relation to international conflicts and closer to home. We have resolved to have a meeting with forces colleagues in the new year. The root causes of violent behaviour are also often the root causes of accidental violent injury. This was never more demonstrated than with the Grenfell Tower disaster. I am pleased that we could respond to the terms of reference consultation for the inquiry. Sadly our representations were not heeded and a limited range has been set for the inquiry with a junior minister leading consultation on the implications for social housing and some superficial examination of the causes of the causes. Nevertheless, I am extremely grateful to the FPH members who responded rapidly to our request for help on the Grenfell submission and particularly to Ruth Gelletlie who put together our response on the terms of reference. We received a wealth of material on every aspect from health protection and response, public mental health responses, health inequalities and the London housing market, building design, regulation and controls and social issues regarding migration and homelessness. Ruth and colleagues in the revitalised Housing and Health Special Interest Group will be drawing on this material for our formal submission to the inquiry (and for a listening minister…?)

A sustainability and transformation partnership has announced a £2.7million contract with the private sector for a year’s support for an accountable care organisation. It’s a mind-numbing figure and would buy an awful lot of public health health-care expertise and analysis. We will follow this programme carefully and see what it teaches… and in the meantime, continue our work to rebuild training and capacity in healthcare public health.

As we return from the summer holidays, FPH will once again get into full swing with major policy-planning days. Our workforce strategy is nearing completion and will be formally signed off in November. We are much exercised by the need to build our membership and would urge you to invite all your colleagues to join us – we have a category for virtually everyone working in public health or associated with our work. I will also be involved in the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges planning days. Our policy team priorities on Brexit and public health funding are taking shape. I will be at the Public Health England conference in Warwick at which we will launch the Public Health Prevention Concordat for good mental health. I will also be speaking at MEDACT’s conference in York with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War on the theme of the progressive-health movement. I will also be speaking at the Oxford public health registrars symposium on the theme of partnership in public health. I believe there are still places available at all of these meetings.

As the US President flexes his nuclear options, and our government stumbles over complex imponderables of Brexit, it is clear to me we absolutely need a progressive health movement which addresses inequalities in income, in opportunity, in education and environment, which understands and builds new programmes for public mental health and conflict resolution, which stands strongly for non-violent resolution of problems, which looks at the health impacts of all policies and across future generations, and which believes in partnership, in shared benefits and better outcomes for all.

By Daniel Flecknoe, Co-Chair of the FPH Global Violence Prevention Special Interest Group

The preliminary report of the Lancet/American University of Beirut Commission Health workers and the weaponisation of health care in Syria [Fouad et al, 2017] was published on 14 March, calling attention to the principles of medical neutrality and unhindered patient access that have been so badly neglected in the ongoing Syrian conflict. Systematic targeting of health workers by ISIS, Syrian and Russian military forces is a war crime committed against civil society, and epitomises a disturbing trend of indifference and impunity to international humanitarian law by warring governments and armed groups over recent years. Established norms in the conduct of war, built up over the past century and a half since the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross, may be irrevocably degrading, and the public health consequences for civilian populations exposed to such deliberate brutality will be correspondingly more severe.

The Faculty of Public Health’s (FPH’s) Global Violence Prevention Special Interest Group (SIG) is committed to engaging with this neglected and worsening cause of preventable morbidity and early mortality. Its members contribute to research into the health impacts of armed conflict (including the Lancet paper referenced), engage and collaborate with other conflict-prevention organisations and conduct advocacy for arms control, economic/democratic reforms, and respect for human rights and the rules of war. We encourage all public health professionals to give parity to armed conflict along with other major global causes of illness, injury and death, and to lobby (both as citizens and medical professionals) for foreign policies that will protect and preserve health.

The SIG will be represented at the FPH conference in June, and members will be happy to discuss our current workstreams with anyone who might be interested in getting involved.

Disclaimer

The aim of this blog is to encourage discussion and debate on public health issues. The views expressed here are the personal views of authors, and the content does not reflect the official position of the Faculty of Public Health. However, discussion generated here may be used to influence the development of organisational policy.